POP 101

Slowly Getting Used to Non-Mobile Photography

"You're gonna feel like it's too much work for you, you might not like it" is what my photographer friend - who recently lent his Canon Mark II to me - told me when I was talking to him about how I wanted to take things to the next level after getting into photography using my iPhone only.

"DSRL" photography surely is more work, but I think it's more rewarding. So, I decided to be patient until I can say that "I can comfortably use a DSLR camera and edit with Lightroom".

My point of reference is "iPhonography", therefore for each of the before/after pair below, I decided to include a comments section where I noted what I failed to achieve that I could have achieved if I edited using my iPhone. I'm pretty sure they are all due to my lack of Lightroom knowledge + not spending enough time practicing Lightroom.

Here we go (3 examples + 1 bonus):

1) Subway Smile

Before

After

Comments

Icouldn't do a manuel Vignette, I had to use presets. E.g. with Snapseed you can do Center Focus, center size etc. Similarly, I wanted to manually draw a circle and create the focus on the guy coming out from the L station. Also his face became too dark, I couldn't brighten his face.

2) Lakeshore Photo-walk

Before

After

Comments

I easily fixed the horizon line no problem, it was a pretty cold day so I created a cold feeling playing with tones. But I couldn't make the John Hahncock Tower more plain black, it looks too greyish, I couldn't do Selective adjust. Also, I couldn't selectively adjust the brightness of the sky only, I actually wanted to create a ice cold feeling...

3) Pre Valentine's Day

Before

After

Comments

Went with a black and white preset + contrast adjustment to add more romantic mood to my friends' cute love portrait. But I couldn't do a tilt+shift, I want to circle my friends to de-emphasize the stuff around them, such as the lightbulbs, photos on the wall, guitar etc.

Bonus) Tunnelvisions

Before

After

Comments

Pei - I know you like this tunnel, so I was just playing around with presets :) I picked this particular one (Cyanotype) because it looked cool, reminded me of the movie Tron... BTW - is it possible to make mirror edits using Lightroom such as this one? http://instagram.com/p/S_nOl4PnaD/